Two years ago, Scott Campbell traveled to Mexico City with the intention to photograph prison tattoo culture. But once he arrived, plans changed for the famed artist, who owns Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn. He was in high demand. As you might imagine, getting tattoos in prison is not an easy or comfortable process. With the absence of modern, hygienic tools, inmates would MacGyver makeshift machines out of toothbrushes, electric razors, phone chargers or whatever else they could find that might help them get their next inking (which could land them a month in solitary confinement). Inspired by the inmates’ creativity given the restrictive culture of prison, Campbell decided to ditch his original plan and instead build and use his own contraptions to ink prisoners.

He started by donating VCRs, cassette players and guitars to the prison’s recreation room. Then during his next visit, he and the inmates would strip the motors out of the objects and use them to craft their tattooing tools. Campbell told Fast Co. Design that he had to build a new tool for each prisoner he worked on to avoid cross-contamination. “Because you make one for each person, each is a really personalized object,” he said. “Soon I was building the machines as compositions, incorporating different materials or repeated parts to create a motif.”

In Campbell’s newest series, Things Get Better, he explores the makeshift tools he used while in Mexico City. Rendered into black watercolor paintings, the tools become elegant works of art worthy of being mounted on a gallery wall. And they have been—the exhibition just finished a run at Los Angeles’ OhWow Gallery. Though Campbell’s work has been celebrated by the art world, Things Get Better is a welcome reminder that creativity and innovation isn’t always a precious process.